Candidates flying from overseas to sit super-selective grammar 11+

[PopcornPoppingInAPan]

A friend told me for one of the super super selectives in London that some candidates who live overseas had flown in to sit the 11+ exam. If successful the whole family was relocating here. (This is foreign nationals, rather than “ex-pat” British families living overseas.) The school has no priority area.

I wondered if anyone had heard this and whether it was credible or if it’s one of those internet rumours?

I was also wondering if it’s even possible to do this. Obviously families do relocate to the UK and assuming they and the kids have a right to reside then the kids will be entitled to a school place. But can you do it before you’ve moved here?

I guess if you can put down a relative’s address as your address for the purpose of sitting the exam and then submitting the CAF maybe that’s all you need. I wasn’t sure if LAs did any more checks on candidates who aren’t already on their books at state primary, IYSWIM.

I have heard of a family moving from Yorkshire when their DC got a place at the same super selective school so perhaps this is just an extension of that.

I honestly thought you were on a wind up @Araminta1003 with a lot of your answers, because I thought nobody would be so obtuse as to not acknowledge that parents were the absolutely essential element to kids going to grammar, not the child's intelligence.

But this response makes your attitude much clearer. You DO know it's the parents but it's those 'Typical British' parents who are the problem. If it's only 'typical British' kids being sold out, that's okay because they don't matter & they're not as worthy of the chance of a good education as your 'non-typical British' child.

Our kids aren't, as a population, brighter. They primarily have a parent who gives a shit, it's step one of doing the 11+. Your attitude (shared with many on here) throws children - just like yours and mine - under the bus & perpetuates inequality.

Get on the grammar bus, Im objecting to the system, not the individuals trapped in it.
But don't pretend it's fair, and certainly don't tell me that your child is more precious to society than any other.

I know loads of parents who have relocated families to the UK and have made use of state schools. I have a friend who works at a very popular secondary school - they regularly get phone calls from people wanting to apply before they arrive in the UK.

Not all parents who work around the globe can afford private school fees. Of course they will be looking at schooling for their children - including a year in advance if they know a work opportunity in the UK is coming up. I also know many families who have chosen not to move to certain countries with work because the school arrangements. Of course, the child flying in from abroad to take the 11+ may be a UK national living abroad.

That would be privatising the remaining grammar schools. Plenty of parents there wouldn’t be able to afford to pay. Many people cannot afford to move into catchments of outstanding comprehensives, it’s why they go the grammar route or ability test route in the first place. You cannot get around some form of selection. It’s just not possible. The more you crowd it into just one type of school, the more elitist that type of school becomes. You cannot get rid of catchment schools, logistics dictates against it and environmental concerns. Having different options like private, grammar, church, online gives people more options and more choice. Engaged parents value “choice” and control.

Grammar schools are not the solution to the wider problem you’ve described either.

Plenty of parents there wouldn’t be able to afford to pay.

Yet the vast majority of middle class parents in grammar school can afford to hire private tutors or reduce their working hours to educate their children themselves. Why not pay the government directly instead?

They would need visas to relocate and that process is lengthy if at all possible. More likely to be British citizens living overseas than foreign nationals

I didn’t say they were. The problem is with society. I don’t think a lot of people on here have experience of the sort of place I live in. It’s the majority of people here that are the issue.

@GroggyLegs - I do not really know what you are accusing me of now.

Parents matter from conception onwards, primarily during pregnancy and early years, the older the children get, the more the trauma accumulates. So not really sure why postponing selection to 16 is somehow inherently better than 11!
It is worse in my opinion as you put a bright poor kid into a potentially toxic environment during their teen years which they will never escape from.
Nobody wants to deal with the poverty and the parents that are the problem. Shifting it out, makes it worse, not better.

Yes, and Brexit cut EU countries off.
The child should also be able to sit +11 exam with a good result and parents buy a nive expensive house next to the school.
We relocated to UK 20 years. Few children in our native country would qualify for passing 11+ exam if they flew in. They don't have English as first language and they start school later than England.

Primary schools in selective areas are not allowed to do more than 2 practice papers because the myth has to be maintained that the 11+ is uncoachable. Also, the skills/abilities you need to pass the 11+ are mostly useless for anything else. What would the benefit to the majority of kids is spending precious teaching time on something useless to them?

It is not true @CurlewKate - the Maths and English GL is pretty similar to KS2 SATs anyway and VR/NVR is the basis of Cat4 as well? So used for setting in many comps later on anyway, just slightly later in the timetable of education.

KS2 SATs are just a different form of 11 plus anyway. People are just ideologically opposed to the grammar system. That is political.

I have been reading your contributions to this thread and am agreeing with a lot of what you are saying. Genuine question though..do you not worry about the friends your children are making when you describe the other families in such terms? If you prioritise education would you not find a way to move out of the are you are in? I would rather die and not eat than send my kids to a school where the parents are smoking weed and fighting in the playground.

Sorry that was for @Mydogisamassivetwat

Why would bright poor kids be in a toxic environment? And if it is toxic then why is it ok for not-so-academic poor kids?

We are stuck here for a while.

We don’t live on the estates, but very close to them. There are some decent families here. We are friends with them.

My children aren’t stupid. They know not to be friends with certain children and to an extent, those children and families isolate themselves anyway.

I don’t let my children go wandering about with who ever. They don’t go out alone. My eldest is 23, I’ve done this before.

My 11 year old is very popular and well liked at school but she knows who to avoid if you know what I mean. She’s very much looking forward to going to the grammar and making friends with girls there - who come from all over the place, so it’s not like she will be the only one living half an hour from school.

We had a still birth, two redundancies, two parents suddenly die, a cancer diagnosis, a landlord selling up all in the space of a few months 5 years ago . It ruined us financially and mentally so we had no choice but to move to the dump where dh was originally from and vowed he’d never move back to.

Honestly though, the school run is like a Jeremy Kyle live edition. The things I’ve heard.

We have a beautiful house, clever children who are doing well. It’s not all gloom. And the primary school itself and the teachers are great - it’s just most of the other people here who let it down. We have found a group of families like us through.

We willl move eventually but we’re sort of tied to the West Midlands now, especially as dd has got into a fantastic school. We’ll just move to a nicer bit the other side of it when we can.

I was referring to the secondary schools that @Mydogisamassivetwat described in her area. Sounds pretty toxic to me. I would be homeschooling if that were our only option.
These schools clearly need far more funding and far more teachers to compensate for the parent group. The idea originally was that the secondary modern would be very modern with loads of investment and teaching skills ready for the job market and for youngsters to have a real future in employment.
The bright poor kids would have an academic education ready for an academic course at university.
In privileged areas like eg. Tunbridge Wells and Sevenoaks the secondary moderns have grammar streams too for the kids who narrowly missed out on the 11 plus, so their education is not compromised.

The reality is that in poor areas the Government needs to invest far more in education than it appears willing to do, to compensate for the lack of aspiration and poverty, that is generational.
All politicians ever do is talk about all the successful comprehensives in London blah blah blah where everyone mixes and the kids get to see the rich kids and City jobs. It clearly is not working the same way in deprived communities. And we all end up paying for that eventually.

Some parts of NVR for super selectives are uncoachable, and I'm speaking both as a neuroscientist and a parent of two very different children, one required no tutoring as it's how ASD brain works naturally, another one I wouldn't even think of tutoring into this level of NVR as it's pointless suffering.

It's not a myth.

(Of course 11+ tests vary and not every grammar does NVR).

Skills/abilities you need for 11+ are useful for maths and other STEM degrees. This is the demographic of grammar schools and this is exactly why PP says "oh but they turn out just doctors and engineers, nothing particularly impressive" 😁 Their brains are wired like that and they have been selected on precisely this criterion! 😂

Well good on you for making the best of the cards you’ve been dealt.

I was just Interested as I come from a council estate background and my sister won an assisted place to a private school. (This was back in the 80s) education can be a way out. Not always however. My sister is highly intelligent but has been diagnosed as autistic as an adult and as such has always found it hard to get onwards and upwards with work colleagues in a social way. Anyway I digress. Sorry to derail the thread.

The reality is that in poor areas the Government needs to invest far more in education than it appears willing to do, to compensate for the lack of aspiration and poverty, that is generational.

I strongly disagree. Schools in these areas are often well funded. The investment is needed in the community.

Exactly. The schools where we are do have good funding. More than schools in better areas. It’s the community that’s the problem.

Some people think the school should be the hub of the community and services should be offered out of the schools on eg weekends to build a rapport with the community.

How many 11+ grammar tests focus solely on maths? None. It’s the only STEM-related subject you can think of in the 11+ test.

@Araminta1003The test does vary. In Kent at least, the 11+ bears very little relation to SATS. And @Ubertomusicof course it’s coachable. Otherwise kids wouldn’t get better and faster with practice.